‘Anin, Barta’a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked, Mon 24.6.13, Afternoon
Translator: Charles K.
14:45 A’anin checkpoint
We arrived before it was scheduled to open. Four farmers on tractors wait with us and the rest slowly arrive – mothers will children and some young men. Everyone seeks shade. Used plastic furniture that the soldiers didn’t allow into the village has been discarded in the grove next to the checkpoint. An oppressive silence around us. As we wait, the same thoughts recur – the people returning tired from a day of work live in shooting or spitting distance from the checkpoint, they can see their village but can’t reach it because they’re not the ones who decide when they’re able to leave and when they may return from one area of Palestine to another area of Palestine. I can imagine what would happen if Israeli citizens had to wait at their doorsteps for the army to arrive and let them go home.
15:00 The soldiers arrive and the crossing begins. Checking documents, rummaging through belongings. A young man arrives, walking hesitantly. He’s sick; he wants to go home. The soldiers interview him, search his pockets, tell him to sit on the bench. A Hummer with soldiers arrives, by chance or not; its soldiers also interrogate him, tell him to wait, consult, and ten minutes later send him to his home in A’anin. The young man stumbles with difficulty toward the exit gate; a tractor that’s been inspected passes and gives him a ride.
15:35 Seven tractors and a number of people have gone through.
15:45 Tura-Shaked.
Few cross at this time. A horse cart and driver and a few children come to and from the solitary house to Tura. A number of young women return from Jenin, then more people. Few cross in the opposite direction, from the West Bank to the seam zone.
16:10 Barta’a-Reihan
We want to give parcels of clothing to a woman awaiting us in the Palestinian parking lot. The driver isn’t willing to go there because the previous time he was inspected and interrogated only because he was an Israeli Arab. I take out all the parcels myself; guards escort me aloud: What’s she carrying…just clothing…ah – do you know her?…she’s from Watch…she’s returning…
The tension eases, a sigh of relief…
Laborers arrive and enter the terminal quickly. All is quiet and calm, and perhaps tired. No congestion. One window is open, which is eno
ugh at this hour. More than 200 people crossed during the past half hour.
On my way back through the fenced corridor I’m surprised to discover that two granite benches have been placed in an L-shape at one of the corners. Excitedly, I photograph the checkpoint manager’s generosity. A security guard shows up asking what I photographed. The benches. He’s surprised. Why? I calmly explain: So people can see how considerate you are. I didn’t have time to describe the bright future I foresee here – a stand selling coffee and cola, chocolate-covered wafers for every laborer before he returns home, a place for him to sit and rest in a gentle evening breeze, a glorious landscape…
17:00 We left.
'Anin checkpoint (214)
See all reports for this place-
'Anin checkpoint (214)
'Anin checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, on days with shorter light time, for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence it became difficult to cultivate their land. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son, and children. Sometimes the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year-old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open daily and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued, stating that whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.
-
Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
See all reports for this place-
This checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence route, east of the Palestinian town of East Barta’a. The latter is the largest Palestinian community inside the seam-line zone (Barta’a Enclave) in the northern West Bank. Western Barta’a, inside Israel, is adjacent to it. The Checkpoint is open all week from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Since mid-May 2007, the checkpoint has been managed by a civilian security company subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. People permitted to cross through this checkpoint into and from the West Bank are residents of Palestinian communities inside the Barta’a Enclave as well as West Bank Palestinian residents holding transit permit. Jewish settlers from Hermesh and Mevo Dotan cross here without inspection. A large, modern terminal is active here with 8 windows for document inspection and biometric tests (eyes and fingerprints). Usually only one or two of the 8 windows are in operation. Goods, up to medium commercial size, may pass here from the West Bank into the Barta’a Enclave. A permanent registered group of drives who have been approved by the may pass with farm produce. When the administration of the checkpoint was turned over to a civilian security firm, the Ya’abad-Mevo Dotan Junction became a permanent checkpoint. . It is manned by soldiers who sit in the watchtower and come down at random to inspect vehicles and passengers (February 2020).
-
Tura-Shaked
See all reports for this place-
Tura-Shaked
This is a fabric of life* checkpoint through which pedestrians, cabs and private cars (since 2008) pass to and from the West Bank and the Seam-line Zone to and from the industrical zone near the settler-colony Shaked, schools and kindergartens, and Jenin university campuses. The checkpoint is located between Tura village inside the West Bank and the village of Dahar Al Malah inside the enclave of the Seam-line Zone. It is opened twice a day, between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., and from 12 noon to 7 p.m. People crossing it (at times even kindergarten children) are inspected in a bungalow with a magnometer. Names of those allowed to cross it appear in a list held by the soldiers. Usually traffic here is scant.
- fabric of life roads and checkpoints, as defined by the Terminals Authority in the Ministry of Defense (fabric of life is a laundered name that does not actually describe any kind of humanitarian purpose) are intended for Palestinians only. These roads and checkpoints have been built on lands appropriated from their Palestinian owners, including tunnels, bypass roads, and tracks passing under bridges. Thus traffic can flow between the West Bank and its separated parts that are not in any kind of territorial contiguity with it. Mostly there are no permanent checkpoint on these roads but rather ‘flying’ checkpoints, check-posts or surprise barriers. At Toura, a small (less than one dunam) and sleepy checkpoint has been established, which has filled up with the years with nearly .every means of supervision and surveillance that the Israeli military occupation has produced. (February 2020)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
-
